Autonomous Robot Finds Life in Atacama Desert

Neil Halelamien writes "Nature and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report that a NASA-funded "robotic astrobiologist" named Zoë (a successor to the Hyperion rover) has found life in Chile's Atacama desert. The Atacama is the Earth's driest desert, with steep slopes and rugged terrain. This is the first robot to remotely detect life, finding bacteria (and lichens, in the less dry areas) by using a fluorescent imager. The robot could also spray special dyes to detect life signatures like DNA, protein, lipids, and carbohydrates. Zoë's next assignment will be to autonomously sample soil over 50 kilometers of the Atacama. The Atacama desert is thought to be similar to Mars; instruments similar to those used on the 1970s Viking missions have previously failed to detect life there."

how dry is dry?

[MC68000]

Just an interesting tidbit, it has not rained in the Atacama desert for 100s of years.

http://www.extremescience.com/DriestPlace.htm

How much does this cost?

[sonsonete]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how much was spent to create this robot? Or, how big is it (the pictures make it look small, but they can be deceiving)? I'm just curious about the likelihood of devices like this going to Mars any time soon.

second look at life on Mars?

[dahlek]

... instruments similar to those used on the 1970s Viking missions have previously failed to detect life there.

Whatever happened with that study about the chemical reactions they found on Mars - and thought was life at first - following the day-cycle (the 25 hours of sunlight on Mars or something similar)? I thought the verdict was still out on this?

Re:Contamination probably

[Wavicle]

The Atacama receives a very small amount of water in the form of fog or dew. Although the Atacama is very dry, it is not very warm. Something like a million people live in the Atacama. In some particularly dry spots, they live from the water collected by giant "fog collectors" [www.exn.ca].

Re:IANABiologist

[flyingsquid]

Why would life on mars necessarily be DNA-based, and why would protiens and lipids nessarily evolve if life evolves? Certainly, other methods of reproduction may have evolved.

One possibility is that the Martian life and Earth life are related. If rocks can be blown off the surface of Mars and land here- and presumably, vice-versa- it's quite possible that in the early days around 3-4 billion years ago, impact ejecta formed a sort of interplanetary shuttle service for microbes. If Mars became habitable before Earth, it's even possible life actually evolved there, and then was seeded here.

Re:Contamination probably

[gl4ss]

they could have probably detected the organisms by being on site. the point is, that vikings instruments weren't able to do the same and they knew that there would be signs of life over there. it's not contamination they brought themselfs.

(you should be modded funny, but were already modded with interesting....)

Re:Answers!

[mikael]

They haven't studied cats or dolphins enough yet to figure it out. ;)


Whenever I run the various OpenGL demos on my computer, it's always funny to see one of our cats lift up a paw and try and "catch" the rotating object (eg torus) or even just the cursor. The most interesting reaction was when 'glgears' was running, and I couldn't understand why my cat kept looking at the power button. Then I realized it was essentially the symbol of the green gear.

Re:IANABiologist

[Decaff]

Why would life on mars necessarily be DNA-based, and why would protiens and lipids nessarily evolve if life evolves? Certainly, other methods of reproduction may have evolved.

Because life has almost certainly been regularly transferred throughout the solar system as a result of meteors. A meteor strike can splash material away from the site of impact at speeds greater than the escape velocity of Earth or Mars or any other inner-solar-system planet. This is why we find 'Martian meteorites' on Earth. It has been demonstrated that bacterial can survive the force of such impacts and remain viable. Bacterial spores could certainly survive for a considerable time in space. I would be amazed if at least bacterial life was not found on Mars, and I would expect it to be directly related to Earth bacteria.

Incidentally, this is why we need not worry about bringing back dangerous microbes from Mars during future sample return missions - contaminated samples of rock are being exchanged between Earth and Mars (and other solar system bodies) all the time.